“Oh you poor thing!” Alma cried. “I have a raspberry leaf tincture for that.”
“We must burn your current wrappings and get you unspoiled clothing,” Gretchya inserted, twisting toward Corlant, who—to Iseult’s surprise and satisfaction—was retreating. “If you could please shut the door on your way out, Priest Corlant, we will begin the Greeting very soon. Thank you again for informing the tribe of Iseult’s return.”
Corlant’s eyebrows bounced high, but he offered no argument—nor spoke another word as he slipped outside and heaved shut the door. A door without padlocks but with faded, chipped wood where the iron had once been.
“Good thinking,” Alma hissed at Iseult, none of her happy glow remaining. “You aren’t really on your cycle are you?”
Iseult shook her head, but then Gretchya grabbed her bicep tight. “We must work quickly,” she whispered. “Alma, get Iseult one of your gowns and find the Earthwitch healer salve for her hand. Iseult, take off your kerchief. We must deal with your hair.”
“What’s going on?” Iseult was careful to keep her voice flat despite the growing thump beneath her ribs. “Why is Corlant in charge? And why did you call him Priest Corlant?”
“Shhh,” Alma said. “You must not let anyone hear.” Then she scampered to the basement hatch and descended below the floorboards.
Gretchya towed Iseult to her worktable. “Everything has changed. Corlant runs this tribe now. He uses his witchery to—”
“Witchery?” Iseult cut in. “He’s a Purist.”
“Not entirely.” Her mother turned to the desk, sweeping stones and spools of multicolored thread aside—looking for only the gods knew what. “The rules have become much stricter since you left,” Gretchya went on. “Ever since the rumors of the Puppeteer began and cleaving became more frequent, Corlant has been able to wedge himself deeper and deeper into the tribe. He feeds off their fear and fans it to flames.”
Iseult blinked in bewilderment. “What is the Puppeteer?”
Her mother didn’t answer, her eyes finally lighting on what she needed: shears. She snatched them up. “We must cut your hair. It’s just … you look too much like an outsider—and, if Corlant is to be believed, then too much like the Puppeteer. Thank the Moon Mother you were smart enough to hide your head—we can pretend it was short all along.” Gretchya motioned for Iseult to sit. “We must convince the tribe that you are harmless. That you are not other.” Gretchya held Iseult’s gaze; a silence grew.
Then Iseult nodded, telling herself she didn’t care. It was just hair and she could always grow it again. It didn’t mean anything. Her life in Ve?aza City was gone; she had to let go of that past.
Then she sat, the sheers grated into the first chunk of hair, and it was done. There was no going back.
“For all that Corlant pretends to be a Purist,” Gretchya began, slipping into the same inflectionless voice Iseult had grown up hearing, “he is also a Voidwitch. A Cursewitch. I figured it out shortly after your last visit. I noticed that when he was near me, the Threads of the world were dimmer. Perhaps you noticed too?”
Iseult nodded her acknowledgment—and ice trickled down her neck. All the dulled Threads of the tribe were Corlant’s doing. She hadn’t even known such a thing was possible.
“Once I realized what he was,” Gretchya continued, “and once I saw how his power drained away mine, I thought I could use it as leverage against him. I threatened to tell the tribe what he was … But in turn, he threatened to take my witchery completely.
“I ended up putting the noose around my own neck, Iseult, for after that conversation, Corlant threatened to erase my magic whenever he wanted something from me.”
Gretchya spoke so matter-of-factly—as if the something that Corlant wanted was as simple as a bowl of borgsha or borrowing Scruffs for the day. But Iseult knew better. She remembered the way Corlant had lingered in the shadows near the chicken coop and watched Gretchya through the window. How his throbbing purple Threads had made Iseult learn all too young what “lust” meant.
Goddess save her, what would have happened to Iseult if she hadn’t gotten out of the settlement when she had? How close had she been to wearing the same noose as her mother?
Despite the six and a half years of loathing Iseult had so carefully and intentionally honed, she felt like a knife was digging into her breastbone. Guilt, her brain declared. And pity for your mother.
To think that Corlant had been a Cursewitch all along. Able to kill a person’s magic as easily as Iseult saw a person’s Threads. It was another witchery linked to the Void—and another myth proven to be all too real.